Comment Re:Success of SpaceX (Score 2) 132
No other industry gets billions for research and then once successful gets to sell the product the tax payer paid for back to the tax payer.
Not true. In fact there's an entire government program for this: The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. It funds all sorts of research with the aim of commercialization. The goal is for the government to eventually have a source to buy from. It's how the government gets private industry to develop products that the government needs, but are not feasible for companies to develop on their own.
For example: need vitamins for the dolphins you use to find underwater mines? No company would ever develop such a product on their own. So the government decided to fund that research and production: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sbir.gov%2Fsbirsearc...